List: Rejected Story Lines for Paw Patrol

At Farmer Yumi’s annual holiday bash, Mayor Goodway has a little too much eggnog and starts to get a little too friendly with Ryder; noticing the uncomfortable situation (Ryder is only ten, after all), Zuma and Skye try to set the mayor up with each of the three adult male residents of Adventure Bay, including Jake, the blonde guy we see sometimes in group scenes, and Mr. Porter.

“Pups Save an Orphan”

In this heart-wrenching episode (possibly black and white?), we finally learn Ryder’s origin story: how he lost his parents, inherited billions of dollars and all the land in and around Adventure Bay—a fortune his mother amassed by deducing and popularizing a method to genetically engineer dogs to talk and operate heavy machinery. We see Ryder’s grief after his parents’ death in a skiing accident, and his resolution to never let anything happen to anyone again. Of course, he loses his parents right before Christmas, so on Christmas Day he finds a package on his doorstep, left for him by one of the scientists at his mother’s lab: a genetically engineered German Shepherd pup named Chase.

“Wally Saves a Seaman”

After Captain Turbot is in need of three rescues in one day, Ryder has finally had enough and refuses to help when he gets his head stuck in one of the Flounder’s portholes. A baffled Francois tries to help, using expensive French butter to grease his cousin’s head, but that only attracts Mayor Humdinger’s cats, who lick all the butter off. Finally Wally rolls his eyes at the camera and gives a good yank on the captain’s hindquarters, freeing him, but the captain thinks he did it himself and says something annoyingly alliterative about how sometimes you help yourself.

“Pups’ Geography Lesson”

Ryder decides the pups need some more formal schooling and decides to sit them down and teach them the geography of whatever world Adventure Bay is in, where it’s just a short bus ride from Jake’s Mountain to the Bay to the jungle to the Antarctic. Lots of silly puppy puns.

“Pups Save a Chicken Switch”

It’s springtime in Adventure Bay and we learn that there is a chicken at Farmer Yumi’s who looks just like Chickaletta—in fact, it’s one of Chickaletta’s chicks from back before she was a purse chicken. Farmer Yumi explains to the pups that Chickaletta is starting to get older and Mayor Goodway couldn’t handle it if she lost her precious purse chicken, so they’ve been raising Chickaletta 2 to switch with the original when the time comes. Of course, Mayor Goodway comes visiting when they’re talking about this and the pups (Rubble and Skye, since they’re the best with little animals) have to hide the chicken so the mayor won’t see her. Conveniently, Farmer Yumi is able to get the new chicken into Mayor Goodway’s purse and remove the original Chickaletta (who’s looking haggard) in a cute and farcical way. The episode closes with the pups and the farmer at a long table, having a nice chicken stew and congratulating themselves.

“Pups Save an Orphan (Again)”

When Child Protective Services comes looking for Ryder, the pups have to enlist the help of everyone in Adventure Bay to make it look like he has parents, and that he’s not a ten-year-old living alone in a huge tower with his six pet dogs.

“Pups Wake Up”

In the series finale, we learn that everything we’ve ever seen of Adventure Bay has been but the dream world of an abandoned German Shepherd pup named Chase, who lives in the crawl space under a condemned old house, surviving on a diet of rats and rain water.